Production Notes: Program Timeline
Vireo: The Spiritual Biography of a Witch's Accuser has been more than two decades in the making...
1990 – Lisa Bielawa writes Senior Thesis, “Signed, Sealed and Delivered: Originality, closure and reproduction in the collaborative discourses of psychoanalytic hysteria and Surrealism” as part of the Literature Major at Yale Univ. Advised by Wayne Koestenbaum, the essay brings together extensive research from the Beinecke Rare Book Library on hysteria in Western Europe through Jean-Martin Charcot (Freud’s teacher) and Sigmund Freud, and the Surrealists and Dadaists.
1992 – Bielawa joins the Philip Glass Ensemble and tours with Einstein on the Beach, meeting and working with Charles Otte, who serves as Assistant Director to Robert Wilson.
1994 –Bielawa and Erik Ehn meet through the New Dramatists Composer-Librettist Studio in NYC, a program founded by Ben Krywosz of Nautilus Music-Theater and Music Director Roger Ames (and still in existence), in which four young composers and four young playwrights are assigned round-robin collaborations created and realized in a compressed two-week workshop process. After the program, Bielawa shares all of her research from the essay with Ehn and the first draft of the libretto of Vireo is created.
1994-96 – Bielawa and Ehn continue work on Vireo, creating demo recordings of arias, a chamber orchestra reading session, and multiple approaches to grant programs and opera companies nationwide. They get no response and decide to table the project, pursuing other smaller projects instead.
2006 – Bielawa and John Spiak meet at the Creative Capital Retreat, which brings grantees and curators together for a weekend of exploring new work.
2011 – Spiak is appointed Director and Chief Curator of the Grand Central Art Center in Santa Ana, CA, and invites Bielawa to be an Artist-in-Residence, making work that is based in the Orange County community; Einstein on the Beach remount is launched, bringing Bielawa and Otte together again in their respective, expanded roles as Choirmaster and Staging Director (respectively).
July 2012 – After several exploratory visits and meetings with Yost Theater and the Orange County School of the Arts, Bielawa proposes “Serialized Opera: VIREO” as her AIR project at GCAC, and brings Erik Ehn into the conversation with Spiak.
January 2014 – Kronos Quartet confirms participation in the Pilot Episodes.
February 2014 – Otte joins the team as Director.
May 2014 – Orange County School of the Arts comes onto the project as a partner, committing to setting up auditions for a girl to sing the title role.
August 2014 – KCET Artbound and KCET’s Sr. Vice President of Content Development and Production Juan Devis join the project as Distribution partner.
September 2014 – Rowen Sabala, 16 years old and a junior at the Orange County School of the Arts, is cast as "Vireo."
November 2014 – Anne Marie Gillen joins the Vireo team as Executive Producer.
February 2015 – Episodes 1 and 2 (pilot episodes) are shot at the Yost Theater in Santa Ana, CA, with Kronos Quartet; drummer Matthias Bossi; San Francisco Girls Chorus; Orange County School of the Arts Middle School Choir; Rowen Sabala as Vireo; Gregory Purnhagen as the Doctor; Maria Lazarova as the Mother; Ryan Glover as Raphael; Laurie Rubin as The Voice/The Witch.
March 2015 – KCET Artbound releases Episodes 1 & 2 and launches Vireo page at website; broadcasts episodes locally as a half-hour special.
August 2015 – Episodes 3 & 4 are shot at the Actors Gang Theater in LA, with cellist Joshua Roman, harpist Bridget Kibbey, violinist Vijay Gupta, flutist Lance Suzuki, and the cast.
January 2016 – Episode 5 is shot at the Shadow Hills Farm in LA, with the Vireo Wind Octet, the Shadow Hills HS Regiment of the Realm Marching Band, and the cast. Contralto Kirsten Sollek joins the cast as The Mother.
May 2016 – Episode 7 is shot at a studio in Boyle Heights, LA, with the Prism Saxophone Quartet, Partch LA, and the cast ; 15-year-old Emma MacKenzie joins the cast as Caroline, Vireo’s mysterious twin.
June 2016 – Episode 9 is shot at Alcatraz Island, San Francisco, with ACME and Cappella SF, and the cast.
